Listening to the news (an nuacht) recently, it struck me how many set phrases there are, where you can almost predict what the next word in the phrase will be, like an associations test in psychology. The difference for our matching game in this blogpost is that these are all fairly predictable, and knowing them probably doesn’t reveal too much about our inner personalities, just the extent to which we listen to an nuacht.

But our challenge (ár ndushlán) here isn’t to teach current events (imeachtaí reatha) as such, but just to see what the Irish terminology is, so you can use it for further discussion or for reading (léamh) or listening to (éisteacht leis) the news i nGaeilge. Some of the terms are for actual types of news events or topics; others are about how the news itself is broadcast.

So it’s a matching game (cluiche meaitseála), with 15 entries. Please note that a few phrases have three words in English, not just two, so there are more words in the second column than in the first. Also, there might be some repetition or various forms of the same word.

1.. neamhiomadú núicléach, nuclear non-proliferation. BTW, if “núicléach” is “nuclear,” what is “nucleic”? Hint: it starts out the same, but ends differently as shown here, with the exact number of blanks to be filled in, n ú i c l é __ __ __ __ __ . (Freagra thíos)

10.. El Niño — a bit of a giveaway since it’s the only Spanish phrase here

11.. praghas an bairille, price per barrel (OR: praghas in aghaidh an bhairille, lit. “price against the barrel,” or even more literally, “price in the face of the barrel,” which explains why “bairille” has changed “bhairille” — it’s our old friend, an tuiseal ginideach, i.e. the genitive case, b/c now we’re saying “of the barrel,” not just “barrel”)

12.. an nuacht is déanaí, latest news, breaking news, lit. the news that is most recent. This is the answer for the graphic above. Another choice for “breaking news” is “an nuacht is úire” (lit. the news that is newest/freshest). And yet a third choice is “an scéala is déanaí” (lit. the “tidings/news” that are/is most recent) and a variation, “na scéalta nuachta is úire” (lit. the stories of news that are newest/freshest).

13.. craoladh beo, to broadcast live

14.. (Tá) seo díreach tar éis teacht isteach, This just in.

15.. tuairisc ar an trácht, traffic report

Freagra d’uimhir a haon (1): núicléasach = nucleic

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